Right, the type key set is just either the allowed set of keys. Removing an item from the value should not affect what the type known as the allowed keys. Its expected that some of the type keys would not have values. If you want to know if a CompositeValue contains a value for a given key, even if its null, the CompositeValue.containsKey(String key) method can be used. View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4226279#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...